Holy Social Marketing, Batman!

A week ago, I blogged about Marvel Comics' digital comic book initiative. The news that the world's largest comic book publisher would be publishing its stories using tech designed for social media like the iPad was a big deal. The news that it would experiment with publishing titles concurrent with their print release was an even bigger deal. Partly because this could be seen as a social marketing ploy, and partly because comic book industry insiders and retailers were worried about how the mobile tech could impact on print sales. Recently, a BOOM, a smaller comic book company, also developed digital initiatives.

Now Marvel's biggest rival, DC Comics, has entered into digital publishing for the first time. Yesterday, the publisher announced that it had developed apps for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and that it would begin selling comic books through Sony's Playstati0n Network for the Playstation Portable (PSP). It also announced that one of its titles, Justice League: Generation Lost, would be sold concurrent with its print release for the entire year-long run of the book.

DC has not had a digital publishing platform before. Unlike Marvel, they did not experiment with internet-based digital comic tech. They have not before used social media devices to sell their product. This move on their part just one week after Marvel's announcement that it would be publishing a title through social media concurrent with print comes both as a declaration that DC will be competing with Marvel digitally, and that the comic book publishing industry will be heavily shifting into the digital realm.

DC is going about their digital publishing apps differently from Marvel, though. For one thing, they're starting out with fewer issues, but will be rolling out more each month compared to Marvel. Their apple-based App - which, interestingly, was developed by comiXology, the same developer that developed Marvel's app - will start with 100 issues being available, and will have that number of new issues each month. The PSP market will start with 80 issues, with 50 new issues being released each month. Marvel has more issues available on their apple apps, but fewer will be available each month.

Also, DC is letting comic book retailers affect its digital publishing decisions. They've developed a retailer affiliate program with comiXology to communicate with retailers both formally and informally to decide which issues should be released, and when. The program won't launch until the DC Comics app does, and more details will be available then. (I will blog about it here.) But the fact that DC is directly engaging with retailers about their digital initiatives avoids the kind of controversy that Marvel encountered with their social marketing initiatives. Also, the fourth, fifth, and sixth printed issues of Justice League: Generation Lost will be made returnable, so that retailers can gauge how the digital market affects the print market, and adjust their orders for the series accordingly.

Indeed, it seems that DC has taken the time to watch Marvel foray into social media business before taking their own steps. Now, in one week, DC has acted boldly. They've expanded into all mobile markets Marvel previously established footholds in, and they've learned from their competitor in all fields. The movement into the Playstation Network opens a new market that Marvel hasn't even approached.

It will be interesting to see how publishers in all mediums adapt to opportunities to release their products through social media devices.